New Mexico spaceport prepared for launch, if it flies with voters

Marc Kaufman, The Washington PostCHICAGO TRIBUNE

Come Tuesday, the voters of this sun-baked area near the Mexican border will have an unusual question to answer: Are they happy enough as home to some hardy cotton and chile farmers, a branch of the state university and a growing population of retirees from up north? Or do they want quite literally to blast into a very different future?

In a referendum, the people of Las Cruces and surrounding Dona Ana County will be voting on a proposal to slightly raise their county sales tax, a highly unpopular idea these days. But in return, southern New Mexico, one of the poorest regions in the nation, would jump on a fast track to hosting the world's first all-commercial spaceport.

If the effort succeeds, a desert valley used by a handful of ranchers could become Spaceport America -- a 21st Century portal for thousands hoping to blast into space as tourists, explorers, researchers and, maybe someday, as commuters to destinations halfway around the world.

It's the stuff of "Star Trek" and "Buck Rogers," and many skeptical New Mexicans simply roll their eyes.

But spaceport advocates, from Democratic Gov. Bill Richardson to most of Dona Ana County's commissioners, the local business community and many at New Mexico State University, are working hard to convince the community that private space travel is an idea whose time has come -- to them.

The New Mexico plan is the first such project to be put to a public vote, but dozens of plans for orbital and suborbital private travel are making surprising progress. Many of them are the pet ideas of dot-com billionaires such as Amazon.com's Jeff Bezos and PayPal's Elon Musk, with very deep pockets.

A prototype inflatable space "hotel" (designed and discarded by NASA) was launched by motel billionaire Robert Bigelow last year and is orbiting the globe unmanned. Musk's private rocket company SpaceX sent its newly developed Falcon 1 craft an impressive 200 miles into space recently before it malfunctioned. And Las Cruces is home to British entrepreneur Steve Bennett, who has invested considerable funds locally in the hope that he will send space tourists up from Spaceport America in his low-cost, well-tested Starchaser rocket.

Most important for Spaceport America, an enviable "anchor tenant" has committed to coming to the spaceport once it is built. Virgin Galactic, run by billionaire adventurer and business magnate Richard Branson, has signed a 20-year lease to use the facility, and Branson's plans ultimately call for launching as many as three flights a day for two-hour rides.

But first there is that referendum to get past. The legislature didn't have funds for the entire $225 million bill and needed other contributors. Officials expect to receive $25 million from the federal government over five years, but the state turned to the three counties likely to benefit the most.

So far, only Dona Ana County has set a date for a referendum, which is expected to bring in $6.5 million a year. The two other counties are waiting to see what happens Tuesday.